As a third culture kid, I grew up an American in Germany. My father's mother's family had come from Germany on a boat which nearly sank in a storm. Rescued they spent a season on Greenland, before they finally made their way penniless to Pennsylvania. Our family moved so often that if someone asked, "Where is your hometown?" I had to pause and ponder.
Paul also had a heritage. As a Hebrew of Hebrews, he had grown up with a strong love for the law of God recorded in the Torah. He made the pursuit of that law his life until God caught him on the outskirts of Damascus. For the rest of his life, he tried to forget the failures of his past so that he might seize the future God had for him. He wanted to know the same Christ whose followers he had persecuted. Paul never thought he arrived, but he knew that his home was not in Jerusalem or Tarsus but heaven.
We must be grateful for our citizenship. I believe we live in the greatest country on the earth. As I write our choir prepares to sing in the National Cathedral. I love the preachers and people of faith who helped to shape our heritage. Still my eternity is not tied to any country here. My citizenship is in heaven. Is yours? Chesterton said, "I realized how I could feel homesick even when I was at home." Paul felt that way. He loved living for Jesus here. But he told the Philippians that he longed to see his Savior face to face. The Savior the world including the United States is waiting for will come from heaven on a white horse. When he comes we will go home to live with him forever in an eternal city that comes down to earth. On that day the only birth certificate that will matter must say with the Psalmist, "This one was born in Zion!"